Norbert
by galliumite
Summary: A one-shot on the life of Norbert and her thoughts looking back.


**A/N This is my submission for Round 4 in The Quiddich League Fanfiction Competition.**

 **I used the prompts:**

 **(phrase) - Under The Stairs**

 **(action) - Running**

 **(word) - Preposterous.**

 **I hope you enjoy!**

The world was small. Warm. It had been that way for a while, until it wasn't. My world was a place that was enclosed, there was a barrier, and it was all around me. The barrier was slick with a liquid of some kind. And then I felt a change. The barrier was no longer a security, it was a confine, I understood that the barrier must be broken, and that I must break it. It was my first fully formed thought. I began straining, in vain at first, then with minor results. I stained my wings, scratched at the barrier, and subsequently weaknesses grew in the barrier. As the cracks spread, I began to yearn for the outside, for something else. And the barrier shattered.

As the pieces of the barrier were propelled from me with the force of the barrier breaking, a set of powerful smells, sights and sounds assaulted my senses, senses that until now had known only me, And the heat. There was a strong smell of wood, with a slight tinge of rot to it. I could smell moisture, and I could smell life. I could not see much, my eyes were dim then, but I could see four people, in no great detail. I had obviously never encountered people before, but I had a feeling, a sense beyond those of the flesh, that this was terribly wrong. I had to find something, my birther. She was supposed to be here, so where was she?

I could also hear things, one thing louder than anything else, a dull beating, like the one that came from within me. There were five sources of this beating, aside from me. I assumed that it must come from these people things, and that there was something else that I couldn't see yet, and my nose was too overwhelmed to find anything else that may be... alive.

From the time my... shell broke to now, not even a second had passed. And once that second had elapsed, the big person made a great noise. It's face moved to make a great sound, it startled me, it was so loud. At the feeling of being startled, something inside me shifted, I went from experiencing all these odd things, to wanting to dispose of that which had triggered this. At that moment, my eyes cleared and my senses of hearing and smell focused on the big person. I could sense that he was experiencing a positive emotion, and I learnt his particular scent. I knew that he had become the enemy, the thing that I must destroy. At that a heat spawned within me, it was the heat from inside the shell. I opened my maw and sent the heat forward, a ball of flame burst forth and collided with the big person, just below his face. It did nothing more than set alight a few of the wiry hairs that grew from his face and covered his neck.

His emotions spiked slightly but did little more, the ball of flames had exhausted me and again I felt a shift, back to my clearer mind, and duller senses. The big one reached forward with an unclawed appendage and began touching me. It was affectionate, it was comfortable, and so I sunk into it. It was that touching that lulled me into the first sleep of my life.

The next few days were a blur, I met another non-human, a "dog" that was terribly annoying as it tried to get to know me, and during those first few days, I learnt that the big "human" was called Hagrid, and that he was not entirely human at all. Of the three "children" that were present at my hatching, only the two males came frequently, and the one with the hair the colour of dull flames came even more frequently than the other. The two young males, started feeding me, a concoction of blood and something else, with a sharp smell and a sharper taste. I could not stomach the stuff. And so one day when the boy with the hair of fire was feeding me the stuff without his fellow boy, I was becoming famished. I needed sustenance, not this stuff. And I shifted again. It was only the third time it had happened, the first time on my hatching night and the second time with Hagrid the day before today. This time however, I had decided that fire would not be effective, it drained me too much, so I used my fangs. The boy didn't return to see me ever again.

The next night, Hagrid, who I had come to detest bundled me into a confined space. I had started detesting Hagrid for two reasons, one because he had obviously done something to remove me from the others of my kind, and two because while with him I had been sustained by nothing more than that which I had from my hatching. A few minutes after I had been confined, I got the distinct impression that I had been lifted. I could smell the other boy that I hadn't bitten, the one with the hair the colour of my scales. The girl was also there. Hagrid was a positive fountain of negative emotions, my last thought as I was taken away from that damned cabin was how distracting his emotions were, almost as if the half-giant cared for me. This was preposterous however, he had starved me after all.

At one point during our march, we stopped, there were voices outside, my sense of smell was severely impaired by the wooden containment I was subjected to, but my hearing picking up the thudding of two others, and the quickening of the pulse of my two bearers. After a few moments the two left and we continued. A few moments later we were very high up, I could sense that much, and there were another four sources of the constant thudding that meant life. There was some talking and the clanking of some metal, before two of the people left, I assumed it was the boy and the girl.

An odd sensation followed, a sensation that I had never experienced before, yet was completely natural at the same time, a sensation that I didn't understand at that point of my life. A sensation that I now understand as flying. That carried on for hours, a sound similar to the sound of the wind that I had heard when I ran for the first time. Hagrid only ever let me run once in the days unmeasured that I was his prisoner. After an undetermined amount of time, there was an impact, followed by the wood over my head being removed. It had been dark when I was put into the containment and it had been dark inside. That meant that when the light of day shine forth, it sent a lancing pain straight into my skull. It was with that pain that I shifted for the fourth time. My "killer" side emerged and I attempted to harm the four that had transported me to this odd smelling place. Three of them left with bites. It was as I turned to fourth that a red spark came from behind me, and I fell into a deep slumber. Just before that however, I saw and felt another thing like me. Another dragon.

I awoke to the knowledge that I was not alone. While unconscious, some part of me had established that there were other dragons with me and so when I woke up, it was with relief. I was no longer alone. How wrong I was.

The other dragons that looked different to me, that didn't have ridges on their back and black scales seemed incredibly afraid of me. Their fear of me was quite strange to me, however I used it to find a group of dragons that were just like me, after all when you feel an onslaught of negativity, it becomes easy to find the enigma to that negativity, in this case to that fear. Once I had left the others, they returned to normal, they remained in their species groups, although there was some mingling. There was no mingling however with my species. I was shocked the first time I met those that were like me, those that I learnt were called Hungarian Ridgebacks by the humans. I was shocked because it was such a new feeling, being with those that you knew you had to be with. There were two others that were about the same age as me, however they were both quite a bit larger than what I was.

A year passed.

The other two that were my age continued to be larger than me, I assumed that it was because I had not eaten in my earliest developments. During that year, I learnt to fly, to hunt, to socialise with my fellow Ridgebacks. The other dragons feared us because of our strength that was far superior to theirs. However all was not well. Throughout the year, I got a mounting feeling of unease. That unease started putting me on edge, and when I was on edge, I was aggressive. I no longer shifted like I did when I was younger, now that my senses were fully developed, but I did become aggressive. And then one day the dam burst. The other Ridgebacks cast me out. They did it without hiding their intentions, the burns and scratches that adorned my body paying tribute to the fact. I was weak, so I was abandoned. I couldn't go to the other dragons, they still feared me, it was instinctual for them even though I was weak. I went to the edge of the enclosure then. To the wall that surrounded us. The enclosure was so large that in the middle of the wall, where I was now, you couldn't see the walls that made the left and right boundary of the shared enclosure. I knew I needed shelter, so I went under the stairs that led down into the enclosure. It was there that I contemplated what had gone wrong. I had been mistreated in my early life. That mistreatment was the problem here! That rage had burned white hot for days, whenever I hunted the sheep that were to feed us inside the enclosure, well away from the other Ridgebacks of course, my rage created a flame that scorched my kills, I didn't eat much those few days. That was what tempered my anger. My rage gave way to thinking under the stairs. Thinking about my abandonment. I began then to understand who had abandoned me, and it shocked me that the answer was not the Ridgebacks, they had never really taken me in after all. No. It was Hagrid who had abandoned me.

I kept thinking about that preposterous notion that Hagrid had cared for me. And one day about a week after I settled down properly under the stairs, after my rage had boiled down. I asked a question. A question that has plagued me to this day. Why? Why did Hagrid hatch me? Why did Hagrid care about me, yet not for me? To this day I do not know the answer to the question. He abandoned me and it may well have saved me from starvation, although now I no longer believe it was intentional. But that truth does not temper the pain that stemmed from my abandonment.

I remember Hagrid's scent, his affectionate touches on the night of my hatching. But most importantly I remember running. It was a fleeting thing then, but now I recognise it as the only time I was happy with Hagrid. I remember what was lost to me.


End file.
